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Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

travellemming.com

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Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#61

Post by ipaddr »

gorjusborg wrote: post #39

I can't get past the sloppy and inflammatory use of English here. This is not 'censorship'. It probably isn't banning, nor is it 'shadowbanning'. Google tunes its algorithms and lets the chips fall. Some win, some lose. While I understand how Google's dominance in search can have outsized effects on Internet commerce, the writer has near-zero credibility with me based on their writing. Honest people making honest sta…

It's a literal shadow ban and Google writes the new algorithms, talks about it internally and decides what type of sites it wants to down rank and replace with AI Answers.

The algorithm isn't some mystery formula it is literally what Google decides. There is no someone wins someone loses. Google wants to provide the answers and is taking market share from smaller publisher today and larger publishers tomorrow.

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#62

Post by supriyo-biswas »

I'd like to look at this from a different angle.

Since Google is an established search player, and that the company has made many public statements on the symbiotic relationship between them and publishers, this means the FTC complaint is likely to go through. Given the current US admin, I also assume they'd pursue some action, either combined with the antitrust efforts, or through a separate legal action as it nicely dovetails with the various accusations of "censorship" that they have.

This means Google would be forced to reduce their AI offerings, and the website publishers in question get the thing that they were looking for. Meanwhile, new search entrants such as OpenAI/Perplexity, etc. are "allowed" to implement the same things that said publishers are opposed to, because of their smaller size and different perceptions, and the lack of similar statements.

Now, because LLMs are rapidly replacing most search engine uses (I've seen this firsthand while travelling on public transport that users in my country first default to ChatGPT etc.), this would mean Google is slowly replaced in an indirect way, not because they could not innovate but because they were not allowed to.

The implications of this are very interesting to me; it means that a corporation should rarely make any statements that have the tiniest chance of creating obligations (which is somewhat similar to Everything is Securities Fraud[1]) and corporate displacement happens not because companies out-innovate each other because the incumbent can do so too, but because legal obligations constrain their actions which ultimately lead to their death (somewhat similar to Planck's principle[2]).

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#63

Post by throw10920 »

fidotron wrote: post #33
thedevilslawyer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an open market that will step up to meet the need. IMO, we can't hold back innovation for web-1.0 based text articles + text search model.

That would be believable if copyright was enforced appropriately on existing AI training data. The big problem with this is it means anything really interesting will no longer be published in the open.

I hope that's true. The appropriate response to Google and OpenAI committing mass content/effort theft via AI training should be the disappearance of things that they can steal.

Unfortunately, there's enough slop that the average user will probably just continue using the AI, because it's so much easier that the quality floor they're willing to hit is very low.

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#64

Post by debesyla »

fidotron wrote: post #33
thedevilslawyer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an open market that will step up to meet the need. IMO, we can't hold back innovation for web-1.0 based text articles + text search model.

That would be believable if copyright was enforced appropriately on existing AI training data. The big problem with this is it means anything really interesting will no longer be published in the open.

As a decade long blogger I am actually thinking about writing more to paper magazines now - a 1000 paper magazine readers are more than 100 from rare Google traffic (:

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#65

Post by jasode »

Aldipower wrote: post #13
thedevilslawyer wrote: post #3

The article treats as axiom that organic traffic is a right. It's not. Most people don't want to read an article on travel advice when AI gives us much better and specific advice, with references, when we want it.

And where the training data for your AI advice comes from?

>And where the training data for your AI advice comes from?

It seems like the unstated assumption in that question assumes that the world totally depends on the information from small independent blogs like this thread's article. I.e. all other information sources would be derivatives of the independent blogs.

There are many other sources of organic info to feed AI training. Examples:

- transcripts of Youtube videos. E.g. somebody (maybe a travel agent or a well-traveled vacationer) records a video giving advice and uploads it to Youtube. Google auto-transcribes the audio and feeds the text to the training algorithm.

- AI assistants used by normal people to "analyze/summarize information" can feed that same data to the AI cloud. E.g. a travel agent types out an email giving advice to a customer. That customer then submits that same email content (or the AI autoscans the customer's email inbox) to enable the customer to ask the AI assistant, "Is this travel advice good? Is there anything this travel agent overlooked?"

Of course, the travel advisor would want to limit his "proprietary and valuable travel knowledge" to only his direct clients in that private email but they stop the customer from exposing it to AI assistants.

The common theme is that AI engines can insert themselves in between many types of communication between people. Those are the scenarios where you can think creatively about where all the new training data will come from. If AI assistants are used as mediators in private communication, information (including "travel advice") can "leak out" into the public. Independent blogs are a good source -- but they're not the only source.

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#66

Post by FinnLobsien »

tndibona wrote: post #51

My personal opinion. Google sees the writing on the wall with the rise of perplexity. People want trustable summaries of long winding content to make decisions. It’s business of sending people to the relevant content and serving ads has to change to compete. It is simply redefining how it serves up information. The fact that small information servers like us get wiped out is the unfortunate consequence. I’m not sayin…

> I’m not saying we all have to innovate or perish but how did our rules based order allow Google to get to this point.

Well millions of people learned how to game the Google Search algorithm and created long-winded, hollow content that would rank on the first page to the point that people no longer trusted Google's results.

Then the perfect technology to solve that exact problem came along—one that let Google cease its dependency on the pesky people it was sending traffic to.

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#67

Post by drtgh »

blinding-streak wrote: post #25

> As one Google executive recently explained: “Organizing information is clearly a trillion-dollar opportunity, but a trillion dollars is not cool anymore. What’s cool is a quadrillion dollars.” This uncited, anonymous quote sounds very made up. Cursory search couldn't find anything like this. Regardless, while the article makes some good points, it is also dripping with entitlement. Google gave you incredible moneti…

Two minutes in a search engine that is Not Google:

> Shazeer says he’s excited about Google expanding its focus to include helping users create new AI-generated content. “Organizing information is clearly a trillion-dollar opportunity, but a trillion dollars is not cool anymore,” he said recently on a podcast[2]. “What's cool is a quadrillion dollars.”

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/google-openai-gemini-chatgpt-art...

[2] at minute 29:18 , https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/jeff-dean-and-noam-shazeer

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#68

Post by arp242 »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #52
arp242 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible for any intelligence, artificial or otherwise, to deduce travel advice based on any prior knowledge. You need to actually go to these places and see what it's like. I don't know of any more clear and obvious example of "AI uses your content, robs you of your income, and gives nothing in return" than this. Whether AI (currently) gives "better" answers or not is rather besides the point.

We will disagree on whether content on travel on the internet is such richly experiential. We will also disagree if displacement of work due to new technology qualifies as "robbing", as any advancement is then "robbing".

AI is trained on this content and content like it. It is literally and directly used. You can't just handwave and then say the content wasn't worth it in the first place when it's directly the input, or use some semantic sleight of hand as if it's just some $newer_thing replacing $older_thing with no direction connection to it.

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#69

Post by Sloowms »

Google and all the other algorithm related content platforms have had this power before AI and have been using it as well. I think AI is a new layer to the SEO war.

I don't care for the grand conspiracy claims though. It's pretty obvious Google will optimize their search engine and the question answering to benefit their bottom line.

Maybe there are people actively working towards evil within Google. I think it's more likely some people recognize the implications of changes, some people don't but no one is working against those changes and ultimately the system will be capable to be used for very bad things and will do bad things naturally.

Anyway a better title would have been: Google's AI is the newest website killing feature

Re: Google is using AI to censor independent websites like mine

#70

Post by krapp »

Aldipower wrote: post #28
krapp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one ever discovered websites through "mouth to mouth" or direct marketing (whatever that's supposed to mean.. flyers? Junk mail?) Web portals and link aggregators and bookmarks and other means of discovery were a thing from the very beginning of the web, well before Google even came along.

That's exactly what I mean with "back to the roots". Search became already so bad, if it continues, aggregators and bookmarks will be maybe a thing again.

They still are a thing to be fair. Every social media platform is also a link aggregator and your browser still supports bookmarks.

Typing a URL into the bar directly is always going to be a lousy way of doing things, however, especially since they no longer map to remote directories and files as they're meant to. URLs are like telephone numbers but worse (and no one memorizes phone numbers anymore.)

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